Lydie Pongault on the steps of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 2015. Photograph by Thomas Ling
As an advisor to Bienvenu Okiemy, minister of arts and culture of the Republic of the Congo, Lydie Pongault is determined to extend the international recognition of the cultural heritage of the Republic of the Congo. In her capacity as director of the Musée Galerie du Bassin du Congo in Brazzaville, a museum that houses both historical material and works by contemporary artists from the Congo Basin region, she develops exhibitions with a local audience in mind. I recently met with her for a tour of Kongo: Power and Majesty.
James Green: Can you tell us a more about the Musée Galérie du Bassin du Congo?
Lydie Pongault: Established in 2008, the idea for the museum stemmed from the experience following the civil war in 1997, which resulted in many traditional objects and artifacts disappearing—some destroyed, others stolen, some reappearing in other areas of the country, but generally no one knows what happened to them.[1] The value of this cultural heritage is not currently recognized in the Republic of the Congo, and the Musée Galérie du Bassin du Congo aims to change this.
James Green: What role is the institution playing in affecting this change?
Lydie Pongault: The history of this region is not well known locally, and this is in part due to the large diversity of distinct cultures. Those in the north do not known the art traditions of the south, those in the east do not know about those of the west and so on. The museum seeks to redress this by including works from the greater historic Kongo region, a region that includes areas of the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola. Education is thus our major goal, [and it begins] with bringing schools and other groups in.
James Green: What exhibitions are they likely to see?
Lydie Pongault: Our recent major exhibition, La danse initiatique Kébé-Kébé, explores a dance specific to the plateau region of the Republic of the Congo, north of Brazzaville. It is a very ancient dance and still performed today. This was a travelling exhibition that started at Musée Galerie in 2013 and then went to Salvador de Bahia in Brazil followed by Cuba in 2014. We really want to bring it to North America and are working on an American partnership.
James Green: What is the meaning of the Kébé-Kébé dance?
Lydie Pongault: There are two parts to the dance: women and children are not allowed to attend the first, as it is the sacred dance of the [male] initiates, but they do participate in the second, known as the public dance. This dance is intended to celebrate the meeting between villages; it is, in essence, a dance competition. It is judged both on the technical skill of the dancers, and on the beauty of the associated objects, such as the puppets that represent different personalities and are used to help explain the meaning of the dance.
A video showing the Kébé-Kébé initiation dance produced for the Musée Galérie du Bassin du Congo's recent exhibition La danse initiatique Kébé-Kébé. Note the use of raffia fabric to shroud the figures of the dancers. Fabric made from raffia fiber continues to be produced by the Teke peoples in the plateau region of the Congo today.
James Green: In footage of the Kébé-Kébé dance, it is clear that textiles play an important role in shrouding the figure of the dancer.
Lydie Pongault: Yes, raffia weaving is still undertaken in present-day Congo, and can be seen in materials made by the Kuba and Teke peoples. In some regions the technique hasn't disappeared, but the history behind it—the importance of these textiles, the fact that such fine examples were sent abroad as diplomatic gifts over five hundred years ago, as seen in the Kongo exhibition—is not well known.
James Green: Indeed, the opening gallery of Kongo: Power and Majesty focuses on these early works sent to Europe as part of diplomatic exchanges, many of them luxury raffia cushion covers. What were your impressions in viewing this early material?
Lydie Pongault: I was unfamiliar with these works. They show that diplomacy did not begin in the twentieth century! The exhibition traces the life between two continents—social, cultural, diplomatic, economic [beginning in 1483]. It takes us back to a peaceful start, demonstrating that it is economic interests that brought violence. This is a story that deserves to be recounted and explained.
James Green: Do you think it's significant that this story is being told in an American museum?
Lydie Pongault: The Metropolitan provides the greatest platform for telling this history in that it is fully accessible and open to an international audience and to all levels of society—the whole public, men and women, the young and the old. It also brings the story full circle, following the paths of our countrymen who were brought here generations ago. What surprised me the most though was the research into the very early relations between Africa and Europe. This relationship of peaceful exchange was striking to me, especially as an African woman, and as a Congolese woman. It felt very powerful.
James Green: One of our main aims, both in the exhibition and catalogue, has been to stress the importance of women in precolonial Kongo society…
Lydie Pongault: Yes, the representation of female power in the exhibition is accurate. In a matriarchal system of social organization, children belong to their mother, and so to their mother's family or clan. This important position in society gives women great power. This power is due to her ability to give life and renew populations. In economic terms, women are also highly involved in agricultural work, it is women who work the land. They are active participants on all fronts.
James Green: Is the vision of empowered women presented in Kongo true for women of Congo today?
Lydie Pongault: We have fallen behind; we have to get back to work now. As president of the NGO Femmes de la Cuvette: Vision et Développement Durable, I am working with a group of women in the Cuvette region to establish how women in rural areas can achieve economic independence. In July, we held our official inauguration ceremony and constitutive general assembly, where we set out our vision of sustainable development for women in rural areas.
The Femmes de la Cuvette family after the opening of the constitutive general assembly where Lydie Pongault, center, was elected president, July 2015. Photograph by Josiane Mambou Loukoula
James Green: Were you struck by any other continuities in tradition that link the historical works presented in Kongo: Power and Majesty to cultural practices that exist in the Republic of the Congo today?
Lydie Pongault: Yes, several historical traditions are still recognized today. Mpu caps are still worn as a symbol of power and are still made from raffia. However, with modernization, and the greater exchange of ideas and contacts, these things are losing their utility. The [Double Bell with Crest (Kunda)] is a kind of bell that is also still used by the nganga today to invoke spirits, to be in communion with them. And the pose of the ancestral shrine figures, where a kneeling woman supports a small figure on her foot, is something I recognized right away—it's how women, traditionally, would wash their children, placing the child on the foot, and you still see it in the countryside. In this object, it likely evokes more abstract ideas relating to purification.
Left: Double Bell with Crest (Kunda), 19th century, inventoried 1897. Kongo peoples; Cabinda, Angola. Wood; H. 2 1/2 in. (6.5 cm), W. 3 1/2 in. (9 cm), D. 10 3/8 in. (26.5 cm). Museu da Ciência da Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal. Right: Ancestral Shrine Figure: Kneeling Female with Vessel and Seated Figure, 19th–early 20th century. Kongo peoples; Yombe group, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo. Wood, pigment, glass; H. 21 1/2 in. (54.6 cm), W. 10 in. (25.4 cm), D. 9 1/2 in. (24.1 cm). Dallas Museum of Art; The Clark and Frances Stillman Collection of Congo Sculpture, gift of Eugene and Margaret McDermott.
James Green: We understand that historically, the nganga in Kongo society was a ritual specialist who communicated with the spiritual realm on behalf of his client. What does nganga signify in the Congo today?
Lydie Pongault: Today it still refers to a healer or expert. It essentially means a specialist, someone with an advanced understanding. You would be considered an nganga because you are a specialist in Kongo!
James Green: In terms of overall political structures, do the historic kingdoms of Kongo and Loango have any impact on political relations between modern nation-states?
Lydie Pongault: This area of central Africa, including regions of Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola, have a communal, shared history. We speak the same languages and come from the same Kongo culture. The only thing that distinguishes these modern countries from each other is the legacy of European colonialism that resulted in Portuguese Angola, French Congo, and Belgian Congo. We are already together, only separated in terms of geographic borders, but even then the populations of these three countries can easily move back and forth between nations. The capitals Brazzaville and Kinshasa are just a river crossing apart, which many people undertake daily in pirogues. There are many other land crossings that people undertake on foot. Life is shared.
James Green: Do you see a future where it would be possible to collaborate on future projects across national borders based on this shared history?
Lydie Pongault: Yes. We are currently working on the establishment of a museum that focuses on the history of the Loango kingdom. Our goal is to create a permanent memorial and educational center to commemorate the region as a hub for the transatlantic slave trade, as has been done on Gorée Island in Senegal, which has been designated a UNESCO world heritage site. The government is very receptive to the idea, and we are currently in the early planning stages. We will hold an international, interdisciplinary colloquium in the coming years to bring together academics and specialists from all over the world, using this as a springboard for the full project. We are very interested in developing regional and international collaborations, believing that a shared history will allow for shared collaboration in the future.
This interview was condensed and translated from French with the assistance of Helina Gebremedhen, Gabriel Kilongo, and Yaëlle Biro.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Jeremy Lissouba for kindly arranging this meeting.
Notes
[1] Pascal Makambila, Chief Curator of Museums in the Republic of the Congo, records that: "Four civil wars have had a dramatic impact on the Republic of Congo: the wars of 1993–1994, 1997, 1998–1999 and 2001–2002, the last one being known as the 'war of the Pool region.' These wars provided opportunities for thieves, bandits and vandals to ransack the museum buildings and loot the collections. Today, we have had to start all over again, building up new collections and restoring damaged buildings… the National Museum of Brazzaville did not escape the law of the jungle, with looters taking away 123 ethnographical objects and a large number of historical documents." For more information, see Pascal Makambila, "Community Responsibility and Involvement in Emergency Preparedness and Response: the Case of Congo-Brazzaville" (2003: ICOM Conference).